The Replacement
by Overlithe77
Summary: AU/What-If. Steve falls off the train. Bucky doesn't, and he takes up the shield long enough to land the Valkyrie in the ice. When he wakes up in New York almost 70 years later, the 21st century turns out to come with its own set of complications. Mostly action/adventure with some mystery/thriller elements and slow-build romance.
1. The Fall

**Title: The Replacement**  
><strong>Author: <strong>overlithe  
><strong>Fandom:<strong> _Captain America_ film series/_The Avengers_ (2012)/MCU  
><strong>Summary:<strong> AU/What-If. Steve falls off the train. Bucky doesn't, and he takes up the shield long enough to land the _Valkyrie_ in the ice. When he wakes up in New York almost 70 years later, the 21st century turns out to come with its own set of complications.

Mostly action/adventure with some mystery/thriller elements and slow-build romance.  
><strong>CharactersPairings: **James "Bucky" Barnes, Natasha Romanoff, Sam Wilson, Nick Fury, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Clint Barton, Pepper Potts, Maria Hill, Alexander Pierce, Background & Cameo Characters; James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanoff, James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson, James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanoff/Sam Wilson (there will be additional characters and pairings in later sections of the story)  
><strong>Rating:<strong> T for some language, situations, and canon-typical violence  
><strong>Disclaimer:<strong> This story is based on characters and concepts owned by Marvel Entertainment, the Walt Disney Company, and various other corporations. I'm not making any money and do not intend any copyright or trademark infringement.  
><strong>Author's Note:<strong> Hey guys! Writing _Wasp Harvest_ was immensely cathartic and rewarding, but after that fic clearly it was time for some lighter fare. I have been planning this fic for a long time, and once **Marvel Big Bang 2014** was out of the way, I figured it was time to get on with it. I love AUs and What-Ifs and while there are many excellent takes out there on the "Steve falls off the train instead of Bucky" concept, I hope you'll like my spin on it. Given my various RL commitments, I don't want to set an updates schedule for now, but hopefully you shouldn't have to wait too long for each new chapter (she said ;)).

With that out of the way, let's jump right on this train! /ba-dum-tish No, but seriously, I hope you'll enjoy the story. And thanks once again to **muffinbitch** for the comments, suggestions, and epic brainstorming sessions!

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><p><strong>01. <strong>_**The Fall**_

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><p>The blow was strong enough to bruise his bones. He had time to think, once—<em>blast-proof thanks Stark<em>—then he struck twisted metal and his hands instinctively grabbed a rail as the shield embedded itself on the torn carriage wall.

His foot dangled over a chasm. _Christ._ A bit more to the right and—

Later, he would like to think that what happened next happened very, very fast.

It didn't. It happened slowly, so slowly he had a thousand chances to change the outcome. He was just frozen, unable to do anything but watch as Steve cried out 'Bucky!', picked the fallen pistol off the floor, and exchanged fire with Zola's contraption.

Later, Bucky would also like to think that he didn't see Steve glance at him just a fraction, just for a split-second.

Long enough for Steve to get a glancing blow from the last blast of the robot's cannon just as the machine died with a blue crackle of electricity and a groan of metal.

For all his strength, Steve was thrown back a few feet. For a moment Bucky was sure he was going to slam into him, but Steve's hand grabbed the edge of the shield and Bucky had long enough to think _That was close_ before the shield pulled loose with a metallic _squoink_ sound. He felt the torn wall buckle under their weights, and the two of them pitched backwards into the hole.

He reached for Steve's hand but he was too slow, his arm turned to molasses. He only managed to catch the other edge of the shield. The sudden yank nearly dragged Bucky out of the train as well, but his left arm remained stubbornly curled around the rail, the hand clamped on the metal.

'Steve.' It wasn't even a cry. Steve hung from the other edge of the shield, dangling above the frozen river a thousand feet below. Bucky had been pulled halfway down with him; his right arm felt like it was going to rip out of its socket.

The rail wasn't strong enough for both of them. Bucky could feel it tearing away, rivet by rivet.

Steve tried to gain purchase on the edge of the torn wall with his foot and his other hand, but they were too far away, and each motion sent darts of pain up Bucky's arm. 'Bucky, let go of the shield!' Steve yelled. Snowflakes melted on his face, just below his helmet. 'I can climb back on the train.'

_How?_

'No.' His grip on the shield was slipping and his back and arms were on fire. He was sliding down into the chasm. He tried to use his left leg to brace himself, pull the two of them back up, but his foot just slipped on the wet floor. He felt the skin of his palm tear as he was dragged down the rail. 'Just hang on. I can—'

God, one of his bursts of strength. Just one.

Steve stared at him for one impossibly long moment. Bucky's body was a slab of useless flesh. He could see the snow hanging in the air. A gloved hand's grip slipping down burnished metal, then opening.

A sudden release. He felt a pop in his right shoulder.

'Steve! _Steve!_'

Steve's face was calm as he tumbled downwards and out of sight, until he was only a shrinking splash of blue and red in an ocean of grey. If he made any sound the pumping of the train's pistons and the screech of cold rails drowned it out.

Bucky nearly slipped out of the hole right after him. Instead his right arm threw the shield to the train floor—_to hell with it_—and his left arm released the rail and dragged the rest of him forward, onto solid ground. He kneeled at the very edge of the hole and leaned down, as far as he could, already knowing he would see nothing but the mountain slopes and the frozen river, pulling away.

'Steve!' he yelled. 'Steve! Steve!' Over and over. '_Steve!_'

There was only swirling snow and the cold metal by his side.

:=:

'I don't know what we're all waiting for.' Too soft. No one could hear him in the busy room. He cleared his throat, spoke louder. 'What're we waiting for?'

Peggy was the only one at the table to meet his eyes. None of the others looked at him. Bucky didn't blame them. He wouldn't have wanted to look at himself either.

'The search party should be out there right now,' he said, and shifted his grip on the shield sitting at his side. He refused to let go of it. Not until he could return it to Steve in person.

'Right now, the gorge is impassable,' the colonel said. 'You want to pay attention to the thing we can do something about, Sergeant?'

'He can still be alive,' Bucky said. He wanted to not sound like a whiny brat, and instead sound like who he was supposed to be: a soldier, a leader, someone his men could count on.

Then again, who could count on him? He'd spent most of his life playing the big hero in two-bit alley scuffles. And now look at what he'd done on the one time Steve had needed him the most.

'It was a thousand foot drop,' Gabe said, his voice very flat.

'It's possible. All I'm saying.'

'Hell, son, you think we don't know that?' The colonel's tone wasn't wholly harsh, which somehow made it worse. 'You think anyone is happy about this mess? We'll have men combing every inch of the place with goddamn toothbrushes if they have to, but right now we have a madman who wants to blow up half the world, and Stark here tells me he can wipe out the entire Eastern seaboard in the time it takes us to sing Yankee-Doodle.'

'One hour,' Stark said, but Phillips wasn't done yet.

'Now, my new best friend says this is going down in less than 24 hours. So what do you think Rogers would want us to do?'

Bucky didn't answer, but he didn't have to. He saw Peggy's head dip, heavy with misery. They understood each other, at least.

'Where is Schmidt now?' Jacques asked.

That was that, Bucky realised. The cloud of ash hanging over the table turned just a little less thick. People had talked. They would talk more. The world kept on spinning, as though nothing had happened.

The colonel tossed a photo on the table. 'In Hydra's last base, holed up like a mole 500 feet below the surface.'

'Anyone got any ideas?' Jim Morita said. He kept looking at the surveillance photo, as though it contained all the answers. 'Because I don't think he's gonna invite us in.'

Bucky looked at the papers on the table, at the Hydra symbol on an intercepted letter. He hated them like he'd never hated anyone or anything before, but the hatred didn't sharpen him, it just sat in his mouth and throat like a lump of cold poison.

'Why not?' The words were out of his mouth before the idea could take shape in his head, but then that figured. He glanced at Peggy. Her eyes were glassy with pain, but still she looked at him and nodded, once. _Hell no_, he wanted to say. _Forget it._ _Not that_. Her eyes widened a little.

What choice did he have? What choice did any of them have?

'Why not?' he repeated. The words should sound like nails on a chalkboard, to fit in with this horrible joke of a thing they were about to do, but instead his voice was treacherously normal. 'We got something he wants, don't we?' His hand gripped the shield so tightly his fingers felt numb.

The table looked at him.

'What's the plan?' Dum Dum said.

_Sorry, Steve. I know you'd come up with something smarter_.

'I'm going to walk right to Schmidt's front door.'

:=:

Getting himself captured wasn't too difficult. Even he couldn't screw that up too badly. He was sure the ruse was going to be spotted straight away—he put his all into the fighting, but even his all wasn't good enough—but if any of the Hydra goons felt he was captured too easily, they kept it to themselves. After that, Bucky was sure the jig would be up as soon they started dragging him through the base. One of them would notice that he was too short, or all the places where the star-spangled uniform didn't quite fit, or even the sourness balling up in his stomach.

No one did, though, and even the Numbskull was fooled at first. Maybe it was just the elation of getting to punch Captain America in the stomach, Bucky thought, on his knees, trying to catch his breath. Schmidt finally caught on, halfway through his rant. One gloved hand yanked Bucky's chin up. The hairless brows furrowed. This close, his face—if it could be called that—was smooth as a billiard ball, as though someone had sandpapered the skin.

'Who are you?' Schmidt said. The edges of his fleshless nose flared a little.

'Nobody,' Bucky said, and managed to get most of the word out before Schmidt backhanded him. _Christ, he's strong_. He looked up again, ears ringing, hot wetness dripping from his nose. Good. The pain didn't matter as much as the time the Red Dope was wasting. _Keep doing that. I can take it_. 'That all you got?'

Bucky couldn't stop himself from flinching just a fraction as the hand reached for him again, but this time Schmidt only undid the strap on his helmet and yanked it off.

'Surprise, jackass,' Bucky said, just as the windows exploded.

:=:

The flight controls were locked. It figured.

'Copy that,' Peggy said. 'I'll get Howard on the line. He'll work out a way for you to land.'

Bucky looked at the coordinates flickering madly on the nav screens, the white shapes of continents on the radar display.

'There's no time for that,' he said. His voice was calm, which surprised him a little. When you shipped out, you told yourself that if the day ever came, you'd try to face death with some dignity, even if in the back of your mind you were sure you'd bawl like a baby. Those thoughts got knocked out of you quick, either by your first mortar round, or by your first big stretch of mind-killing boredom. Not much time to worry about death when you were trying to keep yourself and your men alive and well.

There was no need for that now. No boredom, no gunfire. Only clouds, gilded by the pale Arctic sun. It made everything seem not real. Like he could just drift onwards forever, kept airborne by whatever magic he'd just seen consume a man in front of him.

'This bird is going to turn New York into a smoking crater and it's travelling fast. Only thing I can do now is bring it down.'

'Barnes—Bucky. You don't have to do that.' Her tone and the use of his name put the lie to her words, but he didn't mind what she was saying. There were worse ways to go, he knew. 'Listen, we'll figure something out.'

'Ah—sorry. Don't really have a choice.' Steve would come up with a plan to save them both, but Steve wasn't here. He pushed the control yoke down, as far as it'd go. Seconds later the plane came out of the cloud bank and a stretch of water appeared, dotted with archipelagos of ice. 'Hey, I—I want you to promise me a couple of things, all right?'

'Anything.'

'Really? Gotta do this more often.' Neither of them laughed at that. 'Steve—if you don't find him, he died a hero, all right? Not getting killed because of some idiot.'

He could say it now, even if the thought of Steve slowly bleeding to death in some icy hell while the rest of them sat around a table was unbearable.

_Let it have been quick. Please let it have been quick._

'Bucky, I—'

'No, don't worry about me.' The rush from the fight was wearing off and the pain from the beating he'd taken from Schmidt was flowing back in. He made himself grip the yoke harder so he wouldn't—

_let go_

—scratch the places where the spare Captain America suit was too ill-fitting. 'And the second thing, when this is all over, can you talk to my sister? I want her to know her big brother didn't abandon her. Can't have her thinking that. And… help her make something of herself. She got all the brains in the family. Me, I got all the charm and the good looks.' He heard Peggy let out a half-hearted chuckle at that. 'She can really go places if she gets a break, but I won't. I won't be there to do that. And if you can. If you can…'

'I will, Bucky. I promise.'

_Keep looking for Steve_, he almost added, but he knew he didn't have to ask her that.

Below him the sea grew closer, closer, closer.

_I'm going to die_. The thought was cool and alien. Everybody was going to die, he knew that, but he was going to die _today_. He was going to die _now_. Snow drifted in through the window. That made it right, somehow, as though everything since the train—the raid, stopping the bomber planes, Schmidt vanishing into nothing, the borrowed suit, the borrowed shield sitting at his side—had just been some strange frostbite dream. Pictures in his head while he tumbled downwards and Steve lived, as it should have been.

It was right that it was going to end this way. Even if he was a coward and couldn't stop himself from shaking.

The ocean filled the whole window now.

'Peggy? You still there?' He heard the tremor in his voice, blinked sweat off his eyes. His bladder felt suddenly very full.

'I'm here, James.' Was her voice tearful? He couldn't tell. 'I'm not going anywhere.'

'I was wondering, do you have any funny st—'

He didn't have time to think. He didn't have time to be afraid. There was a roar of sound, splintering glass. The world was ripping in half. He closed his eyes, raised the shield in front of his face, purely on instinct.

There was a searing pain in his left side.

Then cold.

Then nothing.

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><p><strong>TBC…<strong>

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><p><strong>Notes:<strong> Bucky's various nicknames for the Red Skull and his near-reenactment of a certain meme are without a doubt the artistic highlight of everything I've ever written. ;) I hope you enjoyed this chapter and that it piqued your interest for the rest of the story. I have story notes for the whole thing and a detailed outline for the next section, so hopefully I shouldn't take too long to post the next few chapters. Thanks for reading!


	2. Ice

**Note:** I think it would be extremely unlikely for Bucky to have crashed the _Valkyrie_ in the exact same spot Steve did, which strikes me as a good segue to say the ripples from the Want of a Nail scenario start with this chapter's first scene and will grow bigger and bigger as we get further into the story. Also, I know absolutely nothing about glaciology and am unlikely to ever have to learn (unless ice cancer ever becomes a thing, I guess) so, while I tried to do my research, I apologise in advance if this chapter totally murders the area of your expertise.

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><p><strong>02. <strong>_**Ice**_

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><p>'<em>Show me the way to go home. I'm tired and I want to go to bed…<em>'

Wintering in the Arctic was, Maja decided, the worst thing ever invented by humans.

She made sure the third marker was driven all the way into the ice and felt for the guide rope with a mittened hand while she hummed the song into the bottom half of her hood. Her mother had shown her shark films when Maja had been an impressionable age.

After what felt like a hundred years of trudging through the Arctic night, she reached the GPR and promptly stubbed her toe on the machine, hard enough to hurt a little even with the reinforced boot. She grumbled and crouched by the device, the bulky layers of clothing getting uncomfortably in the way.

Summering in Antarctica had been a doodle. In Antarctica there had been a research station with real beds and central heating and potted plants instead of a ship where even the hot water was cold. There had been endless daylight.

There had been penguins.

'_I had a little drink 'bout an hour ago and it's gone right to my head...'_

Even inside the hood, she could barely hear herself over the knife edge of wind. Her mitten tapped the monitoring screen. The machine was, in theory, supposed to generate revolutionary new 3D ice shelf datasets. In real life, it had promptly turned out to spend half its time as a very large and very expensive paperweight and the other half requiring fussy and fiddly handling; sometimes duct tape was involved. She leaned a little closer. The GPR was rugged and bulky, its various control and readout screens narrow and nearly invisible inside their thick protective rims, even with the flashlight.

Maja stopped humming and started adjusting the machine's settings. The readings they'd been getting over the ever-temperamental satellite uplink hadn't been right, but the ones the machine was displaying right now were not even wrong. You couldn't get that level of impedance, not on ice and—

She straightened up, wobbling a little in her snow boots. Her body felt the ice starting to crack underneath her before her ears did, but even so her legs weren't fast enough. She started running, got caught in the guiding rope, and felt one of the marker poles come loose with a_ twang_. It whistled past her as the ice opened up and she was engulfed by darkness and snow dust.

Her feet slammed against something and she stopped sliding down. Around her the ice settled. She could still feel little slivers of it on her face, even though she'd thought her skin was too numb for that. She took a deep breath, which was easier said than done through layers of thermal clothing, and tried to sit up.

At least all limbs and various bits seemed to be present and accounted for, and if she'd broken something, it was too cold for her to really feel it.

The flashlight was gone. She reached awkwardly into her vest with her bulky mitten and managed to pull out and activate one of her emergency flares. There was a fizz and a sudden burst of green light.

The good news was that the crevasse she had fallen into was only a couple of metres deep.

The weird news was that there was_ something_ inside the ice, huge and dark, tinged an alien tint by the flare.

She knew she shouldn't have watched _The Thing_ not long before coming, or indeed ever.

She hauled herself to her feet, as much as she could inside the narrow space that had just broken open in the ice sheet. In front of her the ice was nearly translucent, like a pane of wet glass, and she could see the metal shapes trapped inside. They were large enough to have cracked the ice as the glacial flow pushed them towards the surface.

This wasn't an alien spaceship.

She edged her face close to the ice, until the tip of her nose was almost pressed against it.

'Shitballs,' she said.

In English.

:=:

Dark. Empty.

Then flashes of grey in the black.

Scraps of sound.

White light wounded his (whose?) eyes, tore into his head. Faces swam inside the fog. Shapes, fuzzy. Sounds, fuzzier.

His head flopped to one side. He saw something that could be an animal, or maybe some kind of machine, nestled against his left side, twitching, haloed with tubes and wires.

'We're losing him,' a voice said, deep underwater. Something beeped insistently.

The fog thickened.

Darkness.

:=:

'Captain? Captain, can you hear me?'

_Captain? No, you've got the wrong guy_—

He couldn't speak, couldn't even see. A heavy band tightened around his body. Soon it started to fade. He faded too.

Darkness.

:=:

The fog was lighter this time, the pain sharper. Bucky—

_Bucky yes that's it_

—opened his eyes a fraction. A fraction was all he managed; his eyelids felt like slabs of concrete.

Needles. He felt them even before he saw them, even before the restraints bit into his flesh.

Burning liquid was seeping under his skin.

_No. I won't let you! Won't let you do it again!_ All that came out of his mouth was a whimper and drool. He tried to struggle, heard a snap of metal.

Darkness.

:=:

'—geant, are you awake?'

_No_. He didn't manage to get the word out. His eyes were still closed, but he could sense light through his eyelids. He was somewhere where the air was warm, and there was the coolness of linen sheets against his skin. He could smell them, fresh laundry scent mixed with the hospital tang of antiseptic.

That made him almost bolt to his feet, but he forced himself to remain lying down. His stomach curdled with nausea. He managed to keep still.

_Steve. Did they find Steve?_

He couldn't think about that now. He had to figure out where he was and how to get out of it. He rolled onto his side, pretending he was just now stirring awake. He couldn't feel his left arm. He must have been sleeping on it, and in a minute it was going to sting with pins and needles.

'It's all right.'

He opened his eyes.

He was in a hospital room. No surprises there, that smell of soap and bleach and medicine had already told him so. Out of the window, he could see rows of buildings—was that Seventh? No, that wasn't right—and soft music was playing on a radio, sprinkled here and there with static.

A nurse sat by his bed. The light inside the room wasn't particularly strong and the sky outside was grey, but still her crisp white uniform and the glint of metal buttons made his eyes hurt.

'How are you feeling, Sergeant?' she asked.

'Where am I?' he said, as he rolled onto his back again. Let them think he didn't know. His voice sounded hoarse; getting the words out was difficult.

'You're in a hospital ward in New York,' she said. Her accent was perfect, but her uniform was wrong, too crisp, too new. Not the kind of clothes someone worked in. 'I'm afraid you were badly injured in the crash. Do you remember it at all?'

_Stall. Play for time_. 'Yeah, I—'

He noticed it, then. It had been lying half under the sheets, so he hadn't really seen it.

Not that there was anything to see. They had put him in a short-sleeved shirt and the hem of the left sleeve hung around nothing. Where his arm should be there was only empty space.

'Oh God.' He couldn't help himself, even if he was trying to keep a cool front for these—Hydra?—goons. He sat up on the bed and pushed the sheets back with his right hand, as though that would expose the trick. It _was_ a trick, wasn't it? He'd _felt_ his left arm when he'd been lying down with his eyes closed, was feeling it right now, a sort of numb weight, like when your foot went asleep, only multiplied a thousandfold. He touched the place where his left arm should be with his right hand, but his fingers closed on nothing.

_Captain_. Someone had called him Captain at some point, or had that just been a dream, or another trick? The suit—he'd been wearing the suit (_what did they do with the shield?_) when he'd crashed, so maybe they'd thought—

'It's all right, Sergeant,' said the fake nurse. 'I know it must be frightening, but everything will be fine. Your left arm was severed in the crash. I'm sorry, there was nothing we could do.'

Her uniform wasn't the only thing that was wrong. Everything in the room was suddenly too bright, too hard. Her lipstick looked like a smear of shiny red lacquer, the music and the static spilling from the radio blanketed his thoughts. It was making him nauseous again, or maybe it was that word, severed. _Severed_. He'd never noticed just how stomach-churning it sounded. His fingers felt inside the empty left sleeve, where there was just a nub below his shoulder, bulky with some kind of dressing.

The window. There was something wrong with that window...

The nurse leaned forward a little in her chair. 'Sergeant, are you feeling all right? You're still recovering from your injuries, so—'

'Who are you really?' he said, before he could think about it. Well, might as well get it over with.

_Severed._

She feigned confusion. 'I don't understand.'

He jumped out of the bed, so fast he made himself dizzy and she didn't have time to react, or even to blink. He stumbled towards the window, his body thrown off balance by the absence of the arm.

'Sergeant Barnes, please,' the nurse said, and got to her feet. She was holding something tucked out of sight in her right hand. 'You need to rest. You're in no state to—'

He ignored her and looked out the window. If worst came to worst, he could always jump, height be damned.

Except there was no height. This wasn't an ordinary window. Instead of a street there was a slab of dark floor, and the buildings were only a picture on a screen.

That was what had been wrong. There were no sounds, no city rumble, not even the rustle of a pigeon.

'What the hell is—' he started saying, but he didn't manage to get the sentence out. His head swayed, fuller and fuller of all the things in the room, spots on the linoleum and chips on the enamel wash basin and the rumble of water in a pipe and that horrible disinfectant smell, but still he could see, despite the dizziness and the nausea he could _see_, and what he could see was that something had been done to him. It wasn't just the arm. He looked down at his body. He could tell, even with the hospital clothes. He was—not taller, but bigger, he was sure. Heavier.

_Needles_.

That… _thing_, the squirming machine (animal?) lying where his arm had been. Had that been real?

'Stay away from me,' he said.

The fingers on her right hand moved. She must be holding some kind of radio device, because two men in uniforms he didn't recognise came into the room, the bulk of holstered handguns at their sides.

Well, that sure made things nice and simple.

One of those wheeled curtain screens stood, folded up, between him and the hospital bed. Before the men could draw their guns, Bucky rushed forward and kicked the screen towards them. One of the metal rods hit the first man square on the side.

That wouldn't hold them off, but it was just long enough for Bucky to brace his hand on the window sill and jump out.

He landed badly, went sprawling across the floor. The arm again—having to move without it was only slightly better than having to move with his legs tied together, or while wearing a blindfold. Even so, he managed to get to his feet before the armed men could reach him, and he raced across the backstage—or whatever this place was—and into a corridor outside.

A few of the people in the corridor were wearing lab coats. This must really be some kind of medical facility, then, but he didn't have time to think about it. The woman's voice sounded over a loudspeaker. 'Code 13. All agents, Code 13.'

Whoever hadn't noticed him bursting into the corridor noticed now. Before anyone could react, Bucky spun around, bumped against a wall as he was thrown off balance a little, and raced down the corridor, towards where there were the fewest people.

'Sergeant Barnes! Sergeant Barnes!'

He ignored the voice shouting after him. Everybody here might be speaking with an American accent, but he remembered the needles, the straps holding him down while things were injected into his body. That told him all he needed to know.

He rammed into a man who went down in a flurry of papers, then slowed a fraction and tried to get his bearings. Exit. He had to find an exit. The loudspeaker was still blaring and he could hear the heavy tread of armed guards behind him. He ducked into another corridor.

This one didn't have quite as much glass as the first. He spotted an exit sign on the ceiling, followed the arrow, and soon found a door marked _Fire Exit_. He pressed the push-bar with his hand. The metal bent a little.

A siren started wailing. He couldn't afford to worry about it as he hurried into the passageway outside. The ground was cold and hard on his bare feet, but he didn't slow down. He could see a street at the end of the passageway, cars speeding by. If he could get away, start figuring out where he was—

Even thrown off-balance, he was fast, faster than he'd ever been. He raced out into the street, then onto the tarmac. He couldn't stop himself. A yellow cab swerved around him, almost clipping him, and honked furiously. More cars honked. He barely heard them, almost failed to notice the big black cars closing in on him. He was standing on a half-frozen puddle and the day was dim with cold, but he barely noticed that either.

He was in Times Square.

Or, at least, he was somewhere that could be Times Square. That was definitely the Knickerbocker Hotel, off to one end, and he was staring at a skyscraper that could only be the Times Building.

Only it was covered in giant, glowing signs saying things like KIA and YAHOO. He looked around. When his body stopped moving his head went on spinning, and spinning, and spinning.

It was too much. A river of shiny and sleek cars surrounded him. Engine sounds and exhaust and neon and lights and moving images filled his head. Something had been done to him (again) every bit as much as it had been done to this place he'd been to a thousand times. He could see the tiny rows of letters moving near the top of some of the giant signs, pick up on the conversation of a woman across the street talking to a box in her hand.

He was almost relieved when more armed and uniformed men spilled out of the cars boxing him in. He was sure blood was going to start trickling out of his ears and eyes and mouth if he didn't have something to focus on, even if it was a fight.

But they didn't fight him. Instead a man in a trench coat and an eyepatch strode towards him. 'At ease,' the man said, with a brief hand gesture.

He was talking to Bucky, but the armed men obeyed him too. Maybe Eyepatch was a military man, then. The Commandos were the only desegregated unit in the US Army as far as Bucky knew, and—if that didn't say it all—they'd only been allowed that because they didn't technically exist. But things changed, didn't they? Why, the last time Bucky had stood here there hadn't been all these little movies somehow playing on the billboards, or ads with women and men in their undies, all looking like they'd got their own dose of magic super-serum.

The observation wasn't particularly funny, but he felt a peal of sickly-sweet laughter threaten to burst out of his mouth and had to press his lips together to keep it in. He was sure that if he started, he wasn't going to be able to stop. 'Who are you?' he managed to say instead.

'We're US intelligence, Sargent,' the man in the eyepatch said, then added, 'look, I'm sorry for the little show back there.' His voice was soothing, and none of it sounded like too much of a lie, which right now was enough to put him in Bucky's good books. He just wanted to sit down, close his eyes, and put his head in his hands. Hand. He swallowed more jagged-edged laughter. Eyepatch went on. 'Though it wasn't all a show. You really are still recovering. Looks like you burst some of your stitches, too.'

Bucky looked down at where his left arm should be. The hem of the sleeve was speckled with blood. As if on cue, pain trickled back into his awareness, a hot pulse below his left shoulder, a cord wrapped tight around his head, even a dull ache in his bare feet. 'What's happened to me?' he managed to get out. 'What did you do?'

'You lost your arm in the crash, Sergeant,' the other man said, and took a step forward. Bucky felt himself tense, but remained still. 'And afterwards, getting you out of your sleep... You were dying. We figured we had nothing to lose if we tried an experimental treatment. Guess it worked.'

'Sleep,' Bucky repeated.

The other man seemed to mistake it for a question. 'Sorry. We were hoping to break all this to you slowly. You've been asleep for a long time, Sergeant. Almost seventy years.'

Some part of Bucky wasn't terribly surprised by this. What other explanation could there be for... well, everything? Martians? Something in whatever drugs they'd given him, making him see things?

The rest of him found the number too big. Seventy years. It felt like being told the weight of the moon, or the distance to the sun. Just a bunch of digits.

He tried breaking it down.

It would make him almost 98.

Nothing.

2015. That would mean it was almost 2015.

Still nothing.

His head was full of bright reds and neon blue and flashing lights. He felt his body sway again. The world around him see-sawed perilously.

The man with the eyepatch drew a little closer. 'Are you feeling OK?'

'Yeah. Never better. Just peachy,' Bucky said, a split-second before his legs gave out and the tarmac rose up to meet him.

* * *

><p><strong>TBC…<strong>

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><p><strong>Notes:<strong> Hey, where's that Well, Well, Well .gif when you really need it? ;) Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and that it whetted your appetite for the next one… The line about shark films is a reference to _Jaws_, where _Show Me the Way to Go Home_ is famously used. Incidentally, regarding Bucky's thoughts about racial segregation in the US armed forces back in the 40s, there are multiple modern comics showing Bucky as fairly clued-up (by mainstream comics standards, at least) on race issues, including back in the 40s, but I have to highlight this one mini-series called_ Captain America: Forever Allies_. Admittedly because that comic could be summed up as Bucky Defeats the Villain By Being Incredibly Bendy and Obedient + Lots and Lots and Lots of Bucky Butt Poses (and Pecs-and-Butt Poses) + It Turns Out Nat's Idea of Foreplay is Telling Bucky How Proud Steve Is of Him. But also because, among other things, there's this one bit in which present-day Bucky thinks about how, back in WWII, the worst nickname he got was the best his team-mates & friends Davy Mitchell (who was black, just to clarify for people not familiar with the comics) and Gwenny Lou Sabuki could hope to be called and, well, thank you, Perspective Man, you have saved the village! (But yeah, if you're interested in reading a modern comic that tries to directly address the racism in the 40s comics, that's one to check out. Also if you want to reach the conclusion that if the same lavish attention that's paid to Bucky's butt in that mini-series were channelled into RL problems, we'd all be living in a shiny utopia by now.)


	3. Sixty-Six

**Author's Note:** So, umm, it's taken me a while to post this. First I was really busy at work, then I was on holiday and tried to get this done for **Meneldur**'s birthday but instead ended up failing at that on every conceivable level, then I tried to post the chapter on the same day it's set in but I had this horrible, two-weeks-long sinus infection, and then I was really busy at work again, and so here we are! Anyway, happy (incredibly, mind-bendingly belated) birthday to **Meneldur**, happy (also ridiculously belated) New Year to all my readers, and I hope you guys will enjoy this chapter!

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><p><strong>03. <strong>_**Sixty-Six**_

* * *

><p>December 28 2011.<p>

He had woken up on December 28 2011.

The first thing Bucky did once his mind was working again, or at least no longer spinning so much, was say 'Steve?'

The man with the eyepatch was no longer there. Instead there was a gaggle of what Bucky supposed were doctors and nurses. People in white coats, at least. They had no answer for that question.

He sat up on the stretcher.

'What day is it?' That was the second thing he said, like a character in a cheesy flick.

They had an answer for that.

December 28 2011.

He tried to fit it into his head, but his thoughts were floating somewhere near the ceiling, and those three words were too big no matter how much he folded them up.

A wheelchair was brought to his side. 'Thanks, but I still got both legs,' he said, but it was no use. He was still rolled down to his new room through more glass corridors, the little crowd around him making it feel embarrassingly like a ticker tape parade.

2011.

Did they still have ticker tape parades in 2011?

It was like having to think through a fever. He might not have had much in the way of fevers since the things after Azzano, but he knew plenty about how to power through. One bit at a time, that was the secret.

So: December 28.

That part was a little hard, but doable. He'd closed his eyes—

_crash glass cold_

—in the _Valkyrie_ on May 6. He'd opened them again on December 28. Almost eight months, but that happened, didn't it? He was sure people had been in comas for longer than that, and woken up and been none the worse for wear. Eight months, that wasn't so bad. You had to have missed out on a lot, but you could catch up.

'I know this must be really confusing,' a white-coated man said, sounding like he was reading from a script. 'We'll just make sure all's well and then you can get some rest. Director Fury made sure you won't be disturbed.'

_I think I've rested long enough, pal_, Bucky thought, but said nothing, and remained silent and still on the bed while the doctors did things to him, as though his flesh and bones had turned to stone. He wasn't ever going to like being poked and prodded by a doctor, but at least these introduced themselves (there were quite a few women doctors) and asked for his permission before they undid the buttons on his pyjama top, pulled away dressings, pressed rubber gloves and cold instruments to his flesh.

His dog tags sat on his bare chest, the metal as clean and fresh as the day he'd first put them on.

It was only he who was different. A little bigger. More solid. Maybe stronger all the time, now.

_We tried an experimental treatment_, the eyepatch man—Director Fury?—had told him.

Was it the serum? The same thing they'd given to Steve?

He looked away from the ripple of muscle. His gaze fell on the nub remaining below his left shoulder, where a doctor was touching swollen, purple flesh. He'd seen and dressed plenty of wounds, had even pulled almost a foot of shrapnel off his leg once and been none the worse for wear, but now he was light-headed with nausea. He ended up staring at a big empty black frame on the wall while his wound was restitched and redressed and the doctors talked among themselves as though he were as inconsequential as a wooden dummy.

2011. Sixty-six years. 3432 weeks. 24106 days.

Plus seven months and twenty-two days. _Mustn't forget those_. He swallowed another bout of rusty-nail laughter.

'Any discomfort?'

He turned towards the voice. 'No,' he said, the word slurred. 'Not really.' (Not the kind they were asking about.) His gaze drifted back towards the room, without him meaning it to. He still saw sharper, better, but the colours no longer hurt his eyes and his brain so much.

Now it was only numbers gnawing away at the spot behind his right temple.

December 28—

'Tingling?'

'No.'

He tried stuffing his thoughts back in his head. _I'm in the future_. The words felt like someone else had scribbled them behind his eyes. He didn't see the future, just off-white walls and glass. Through the window he could see high-rises, steel and light in the darkening fog.

'Numbness?'

_Everywhere_. 'No.'

'Pain?'

He felt his tongue go slack. His left arm—the place where his left arm used to be—was a ragged red net of pain. They had lied to him, he was sure. The limb hadn't been severed clean; it had been ripped off, like a fly's wing.

'A little,' he ended up saying, even though he knew it was a trick.

There was another needle after that, pushed into the soft flesh in the crook of his arm, and he had to look away again, focus on a rubbery thumping he was sure no one else was picking up on, one of the doctors nervously scuffing the tip of his shoe on the floor.

It was just the one needle, too. So not that mean a trick. Not like when—

'This should help with the pain,' one of the lady doctors said. 'Let us know if it doesn't work.'

Another outside thought: _they don't know how_ you _work_.

He pretended to yawn, then wasn't pretending at all. 'Sorry. Getting real tired now.' He tried to make it sound as smooth and friendly as he could, but he seemed to have lost the knack, as though it had—

_been severed_

—withered away in the ice.

It didn't matter. Smooth or clunky, it seemed to work.

'Just press the call button if you need anything,' the same woman doctor said as she placed a squat white wand on the bed. 'Anything at all.' While she spoke, another doctor fastened some kind of weird watch around Bucky's wrist.

'This will let us make sure everything's all right without it getting in the way,' the second doctor said as he finished placing the shackle. He was smiling. They were all smiling as they stepped out of the room, but they were the kind of smiles that didn't reach their eyes.

There was a soft click as the last doctor closed the door behind her.

Left him alone in his 21st century cage.

:=:

_Director Fury. US intelligence. Experimental treatment. 28 Dec 2011_. He was still light-headed, the thoughts bouncing around inside his skull like rubber balls. He rubbed his eyes until he saw big dark splotches, then slipped out of the bed.

As cages went, Bucky had to admit this was probably the cushiest he'd ever been in. There was a strange but not unpleasant smell clinging to everything (he was starting to think of it as the 2011 smell), but the floor was covered in thin yet soft carpet, and the room was warm and full of fading winter light.

He swayed a little on his feet, balled his hand into a tight fist to help himself focus.

There was a nightstand next to the bed, a tray with some glasses and a pitcher of water. Seeing it made him suddenly parched, and he drank straight from the pitcher, even while some little part of him kept wondering if there was something in the water.

When he set the pitcher down, it was two-thirds empty.

'First drink in seventy years. I got thirsty,' he said out loud, and then was glad when he hiccuped instead of laughing.

_Pull yourself together, man_. His head still throbbed. He stepped to the foot of the bed, grabbed the bakelite railing, and pulled. The bed—a big, heavy hospital bed—rose a few inches off the floor. He held it for several seconds, then let it drop to the floor with a loud thud. His muscles ached and he was sure he'd managed to put something in his left shoulder even more out of whack, but it had been no harder than lifting a sack of potatoes.

Well, he hadn't expected anything else, had he? So what was the point of standing here gawking about it?

A set of doors in one of the walls opened into a closet full of clothes and footwear. He didn't need to try them on to know they were all his size. Another door, next to one of the windows, led to an enormous bathroom full of dark tiles and gleaming chrome and glass.

A mirror took up almost a whole wall. He stood in front of it, studying his reflection as though there would be some clue in it that would snap everything back into place.

His eyes were a little bloodshot and he needed a shave, but all he could focus on was the empty sleeve. It remained at his side as he raised his right hand, and he thought of a funhouse mirror, one that made him look lopsided, unfinished. There was an intense itch where his left arm should be.

Enough. His mug wasn't that interesting.

Moments later, he managed to soak his pyjamas when he discovered that the shower worked with the press of a button, and he was sure he spent an embarrassingly long amount of time staring at the tap above the sink and its seemingly infinite supply of hot water.

(Taking a whizz in the 21st century was much the same as always. There was that, at least.)

Back inside the bedroom, he looked at the couch and the two chairs, then at the heater that was as sleek and thin as everything else in the future. There was a chest of drawers, empty, and on the bedside table a skinny black oblong sat on a small stand. The object had a number pad, which at first made him think it was some kind of radio device, but once he examined the symbols on the buttons, he realised this must be a telephone.

He couldn't suppress a dart of elation. He could call—

Who?

His right hand bumped against his left hip. He'd been trying to scratch his wrist, he realised.

He had—he'd had a small birthmark just above his left wrist. He swallowed, pushed the memory away (_why the hell did you think about that anyway?_) and picked up the other thing on the nightstand. He wondered if this was another glossy black telephone—maybe people in the 21st century had two, to go with their moon cities—but other than the numbers and the pluses and minuses, there weren't any symbols he recognised. Well, there was a larger red button. He was sure _something_ would happen if he pressed that. Things couldn't change that much in sixty-six years, he thought as he pushed it.

'—develops in Indonesia.'

He spun towards the voice, hand raised and half-curled into a fist, then promptly felt his face heat up with embarrassment. He was still alone. The thing he'd taken for an empty frame had come to life and filled with moving pictures, like a miniature movie screen. Two people sat at a desk with a stylised world map behind them. A news ticker scrolled away at the bottom. It was evening on December 28 2011, like he'd been told.

He swallowed again. This time he was sure he could feel a trace of sourness left behind by the water.

It wasn't a lie, or a dream. December 28 2011, sixty-six years, New York of the future, all of it. He'd never thought so, not really. Dreams didn't smell like this, and it was all both too elaborate and too straightforward to be a lie.

It was just that seeing that date and time on the screen, the seconds ticking forward, the words saying things he only half understood, made it fully real, somehow, like a—

_fall snow_

—stamp on a death certificate.

His head swam as though he'd just downed a whole bottle of whisky in one go. He closed his eyes tight, managed to remain upright.

'—with a special report on the risks of anti-ageing treatments, after the break.'

When he opened his eyes again, an animated logo was moving on the screen, in time with some fast-paced music. Bucky placed the controller on the bed, then leaned towards the glass screen until he could feel faint waves of heat radiating from it. A lifetime, two lifetimes ago, he and Steve had seen a television exhibit at Stark Expo, but even that futuristic display hadn't been nowhere near this life-like, and the chunky electronics would never have fit into this slender frame. He ran his thumb over the lower edge of the television device. On a corner there was a logo saying Stark Industries.

He straightened up. On the screen, a woman was smiling so hard at toothpaste that Bucky was sure the tube must either have pep pills or the big prize-draw numbers. How old was Stark? He must be almost a hundred by now. He—

He'd turned to his right, to ask Steve if he knew when Stark had been born.

'Goddammit.' He couldn't help but wish he was still holding the control pad just so he could throw it on the bed, even though he knew that would be utterly childish.

The other door. Maybe it was time to try that.

First, though, he ripped away the thing on his wrist, and couldn't help but be a little surprised when it didn't start beeping.

He walked to the door, tried the handle, felt the metal bend a little, and weakened his grip. He might be stronger all the time now, but he still wasn't sure how much.

The handle turned and the door opened a crack, with no resistance. No alarm sounded as he stepped outside. Guards didn't swarm the corridor. He picked up his pace, walking towards where he could hear faint noises, then slowed to a stop.

Where was he going to go?

He wasn't a prisoner, or at least he hadn't been treated like one. He had some kind of value to these people, he knew, but he didn't think they would strap him down to a bed if he asked to leave the building. They would probably take him to wherever he asked to go.

He could walk around Manhattan.

He could go to Brooklyn, and wander through streets he knew full of buildings he didn't.

Full of strangers.

He could pick up the phone and try to work out how to get the operator and ask for the Stark Industries number. Maybe he'd manage to talk to a secretary, or a robot secretary, whatever they had in the 21st century, and explain he was an old acquaintance of Mr Howard Stark's. It's a funny story. What a laugh that would be. Good times.

The ache in his wound had ebbed away a little, but now it itched more furiously than ever. The rest of his skin felt too tight. He wanted to move, to run until he dropped to the ground and didn't have to think anymore.

He wasn't a prisoner. He just had seventy years of bars around him. Couldn't even hope for a passing ship, send a message in a bottle.

Instead of running he walked back into the room, sat on the bed, and stared at the future.

:=:

He was walking through a snow-covered field, towards the mission objective. Steve was a few feet ahead of him, the shield on his back slick with frost.

He saw the hole in front of them, half-hidden in the blanket of snow, but it was very important that they keep going. He knew everything depended on it.

'Watch out,' Bucky said, but the words didn't make it out of his mouth.

Steve lay on his back at the bottom of the hole, eyes open into the sky.

'I'll get you out of there.'

Instead Bucky's hands pushed fistfuls of snow into the hole, until there was only white.

:=:

He woke up with a strangled gasp. Something was on his mouth. He struck at the thing with his left fist, didn't feel the blow land, then tried to bat it away with this right hand.

A pillow. He was struggling with a pillow.

_Since when do we—_

_Get up_. They were supposed to intercept Zola's train and time was a-wasting.

'Man, I had the weirdest…'

… _dream_.

He bolted up, head snapping towards his right, where Steve should be, and where of course he wasn't. For a moment Bucky felt his thoughts writhe, like cut live cables, then his mind settled. He was in a room in New York.

It was 2011.

His left arm hadn't fallen asleep, it had been chopped off when he'd crashed a Hydra bomber.

He'd been on ice.

He'd killed his best friend.

He scrunched his eyes shut, trying to squeeze away the thoughts and the remnants of some dream he could barely remember (there was a dim image of Steve lying down, not fighting back or mouthing off, which made it a dream for sure). His tongue felt like it was covered in fur and even though the shot had dulled the pain in his arm, now it was back with a vengeance, a sharp-toothed thing clamping its fangs on the stump.

A cold hook of fear inside his chest: what if he'd slept for another seventy years? But no, he was being stupid. He'd just dozed off for moments, he was sure. The television screen was still glowing, now showing some woods. He fished the control pad from the end of the bed and pressed the red button, turning the screen black and silent again.

He remembered now: after he returned to the room he'd fiddled with the control pad, moving by trial and error until he figured out how to change the station. Then he'd kept doing it until the heat and the too-soft bed had made him drift off to sleep for a few moments, without him realising or wanting it. That was what had happened, he was sure. He remembered watching a bit of something called _Toddlers & Tiaras_, and there was no way he could have made that up.

Well, he didn't want to stay in bed, that much he knew. He peeled off his sweat-sticky clothes, which was easier said than done with just one arm, then made his way into the science shower, where he stood under icy water for as long as he could without getting the bandages wet. He wasn't surprised when he stepped back onto the tiles and found out that the towel sitting on the railing was already warm. In the last twelve hours and change he'd learnt that the people from the 21st century liked electricity and lights and heat (a lot); that they had hundreds of television stations, one of which seemed to be entirely about the weather (perhaps there was more of it these days); and that they didn't like clocks (not one bit).

Getting some clothes on with just the one hand was even harder than getting them off. He ended up having to sit on the edge of the bed and wriggle his way into a pair of trousers, and he picked the sweater and the shoes based on the fact that they had no buttons or laces.

This late at night, the corridors were lit only by a weak, ghostly glow. He wandered deeper into the building, more or less at random. The signs on the doors were useless; they all said things he knew nothing about.

He didn't know how long it took for him to end up in what he was sure was the same glass-fronted corridor he'd run through during his inglorious escape into Times Square. He edged close to the cold-rimmed panes, and looked out at the ribbon of city unspooled in front of him. Seventh Avenue, familiar buildings wedged like old scars between glowing, five-storey-high billboards, symbols and words he'd never seen before.

There were Christmas lights. He'd forgotten it was just three days after Christmas.

An endless flow of traffic moved up and down the avenue, the faint rumble seeping in through the glass. If he closed his eyes he could pretend he was back where he should be, and that everything was just as he'd left it.

Except for the itch where his left arm had been, which was starting to make the pain feel good in comparison. He knew if he started scratching, he would probably rip right through the skin. He ended up balling his hand so tightly his nails dug into his palm and he was sure he could feel the bones crack.

Man, he really needed a smoke.

Or a drink.

Hard liquor sounded like the better option right now.

The footfalls drawing closer to him were faint, but still he picked them up. He kept looking at the city until a voice sounded out.

He'd heard it twice now, which counted as familiar in the future. Good. Familiar was good.

'Couldn't sleep?'

Bucky turned around. The man with the eyepatch—_Director Fury_, Bucky corrected himself—was still wearing the same trench coat as before. He didn't look like he'd changed his clothes, but neither did he look rumpled or tired. Bucky couldn't help but wonder if he actually slept.

'Something like that,' Bucky said, then let a second drip by before he asked 'did you find Steve?'

'I should have introduced myself before.' He took a couple of steps towards Bucky and held out one hand. 'Nick Fury, Director of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division. S.H.I.E.L.D. for short. Back in the day, it was the SSR.'

Bucky shook his hand. 'James Barnes, but you knew that already, sir.'

'Nick is fine. So is Director Fury. Care to join me for a cup of coffee?'

As if on cue, Bucky's stomach knotted painfully. He was suddenly ravenously hungry, but he supposed coffee would have to do. 'Sure.' He paused for a few moments as he followed Fury. 'If this used to be the SSR—'

'You're going to ask me about Agent Carter, unless I'm mistaken.'

He didn't sound like the kind of man who made many mistakes, Bucky thought, but said nothing.

'I know you worked with her,' Fury went on. 'And she was one of our founders. Along with General—sorry, it was Colonel Phillips back then. And Howard Stark.'

Bucky didn't reply, but he couldn't help but feel a little dash of reassurance. It wasn't exactly like coming across an old friend, but he supposed this was as close as it got in the future.

_Not all old friends._

_Shut up._

Fury led him into a lift—glass and steel and glowing buttons, like everything else—that whisked them towards the top of the building. He glanced away from his own reflection.

'Did you?' Bucky said. He couldn't help himself. 'Find Steve?'

'You were the only one we found in the bomber wreckage.'

'So you were looking for him.'

There was a ding and the lift doors opened. Fury said nothing as he walked them into an office and directed Bucky to a low sofa with a gesture. This was another 21st century room, where most of the walls were glass and there was a small sculpture on a desk that Bucky didn't really understand. That was more Steve's—

'How do you take your coffee, Barnes?'

Bucky looked down at the tray where a coffeepot was filling the air with bittersweet steam, then at the solitary hand lying on his knee. Fury was being kind, he knew. 'Sugar, milk, and cream, please.' It made him sound like a kid, but right now he could down the whole little ceramic jug of milk in one go, eat spoonfuls of cream, tip the sugar bowl into his mouth. He hoped his stomach wouldn't start rumbling. 'And everybody calls me Bucky.'

Fury spoke again as he poured the coffee. 'The official story is that Captain America was presumed killed in action during a raid on a Hydra base in the Austrian Alps. An experimental bomber plane was taken down. The mission cost the lives of both Captain Steve Rogers and his second-in-command, Sergeant James Barnes. It saved the lives of millions. Probably avoided turning another few weeks of war into another few decades. We won, by the way.'

Bucky picked up his cup. It burned his fingers, and the liquid was scalding, but he still took a sip. It tasted good, even that hot. 'I figured.'

'I don't suppose anyone's said thank you yet.'

He couldn't help but be a little startled. All he'd done was remain in the pilot's seat in the _Valkyrie_. So all he'd done was nothing, really. In the most literal sense. 'Anyone would have done the same.'

'Would they?'

Fury's eye was unblinking, and Bucky found his own gaze drifting towards the city. This high up he could see grids of lights, beacons shining close to the clouds, the Blackwell's Island Bridge stretching above the East River. Manhattan, the same yet wholly different, off like spoilt milk. He drank another mouthful of coffee, and felt it settle in his stomach like a ball of lead. 'Is there an unofficial story?'

'The SSR sent a search and rescue team to a gorge in the Austrian Alps in May 1945.' Fury set his cup down and steepled his fingers. 'Twice. Another team was sent in June. Then another operation in 1946. And 1949. They all found nothing. A body was never recovered.'

'So…' He wasn't going to say anything else, and he knew it. He hadn't really realised how big a few words could be. _They all found nothing. Never recovered. 28 December 2011._

'I know it's a lot to take in.' Fury's voice had turned just a fraction softer. Bucky had known him for only a few hours—a few minutes, really—but he was still sure that didn't happen often. 'For us, it's history. For you, it just happened. And when you were found…'

_No, you don't understand_, Bucky thought. _Sometimes I told him he was going to get himself killed one of these days, but someone who'd say 'Don't let me catch you here again' through a black eye and a split lip can't just_ die_, OK? Just slip. Just fall_. And then, right after, like a sliver of ice, _I was wearing the suit_. A memory floated up: someone calling him Captain. 'Did you think I was him?'

'We thought it was possible,' Fury said. 'A lot of secrets get buried in seventy years.'

'Is that when you gave me the serum?' An alarm—_Christ, shut up_—sounded inside his mind, reminding him that he was a soldier, that he understood the chain of command, that even he knew when to shut his goddamn trap. It didn't matter. He couldn't stop himself. 'When you realised I wasn't Steve?'

Fury cocked his eyebrow. 'The super-soldier serum? We don't have it. Nobody managed to recreate it.'

It was true, and Bucky knew it. If they could make an army of super-soldiers, why bother digging up a cripple from the ice? Why not put him back when they realised he wasn't who they wanted?

Another flash: a machine, hooked up where his left arm should be. He wasn't sure if it was a dream or a memory. 'You did something to me. I'm faster. Stronger. I…' He could feel his fingers tightening around the cup, and stopped himself just before he shattered it to pieces. 'Zola. He was a Hydra scientist.' The taste of coffee in his mouth turned to bile, but he managed to carry on. It was the way Fury's face was still as a statue's, his expression blank. It made the words slide out a little more easily. 'Two ye—back in '43, the 107th got captured in Northern Italy. We got sent to a labour camp, a factory. Zola was there. He'd set up this ward and they let him do experiments. You couldn't work anymore, off you went. And I—he gave me something. I guess whatever he gave me must have mixed with what you gave me.' He fell silent, looked at the empty cup in his hand, where the coffee's dregs looked like a black and lidless eye. Wherever Zola was, he must be laughing.

'We're familiar with Zola's work for Hydra,' Fury said. 'And the report on the Kreischberg raid did mention that Rogers found you in a medical ward. There weren't a lot of details.'

_Thank God for that_. He hadn't told anyone about what had happened, about the changes afterward, not even Steve, but during the things after Azzano, he had sometimes drifted up from the restraints and the fire and the sharp instruments, and seen Zola scribbling away in a notebook, seemingly unbothered by the noise. He looked up again. 'Why am I really here, Director Fury?'

If Bucky's question surprised him, Fury gave no signs of it. He just seemed to hesitate for a split-second, then stood up and walked towards one of the walls. 'You weren't the only thing we found in the wreckage.' Bucky followed him. 'Open storage C,' Fury added, but before Bucky could try to understand what the other man was saying, one of the walls slid open.

He would like to think he was surprised, angry—anything at all—when he saw the white star, the red and blue looking like fresh varnish under the subdued light.

But he wasn't. He felt nothing.

'No,' he said. It came out in a whisper. He cleared his throat, repeated himself. 'No. Not going to do that. Sorry,' he added, and knew the apology didn't sound even a little bit sincere.

Some part of him expected Fury to react like one of his old drill sergeants, or Colonel Phillips, at least. Instead Fury's expression remained unchanged, and when he spoke again his voice was as smooth as ever. 'I think you should know what's on the table before you say no to it.'

'I know I was wearing a spare Cap outfit when you found me. I know you noticed how I… changed, and now you're showing me the shield. And I know I'm not Steve. I'm not gonna put on his costume and pretend to be him.'

'I'm not asking you to,' Fury said. Bucky didn't look at him; his eyes stung, and he was afraid of what the other man would see in them. 'You know, I've been reading up on you since we found you. You don't strike me as the kind of man who likes getting benched.'

_Cap, if you think you're putting me on the bench again_— He dug his fingers into his palm again to push the memory away, but instead saw snowflakes falling on metal. A gloved hand, slipping? Opening? Slipping. Opening. Letting go.

Not millions of lives. Just one. _Just one, you goddamn jerk._

He felt hollow, everything under the skin scooped out, and even though he didn't really notice it, he must have swayed on his feet a little, because Fury's hand reached out halfway to him, as though Bucky looked about to spill on the floor again.

'Are you—'

'I'm fine,' Bucky said, face hot with shame. 'Just… I—I thought we'd won the war. Can't see why you need a one-armed man in a star-spangled outfit.'

The corner of Fury's mouth twitched a little, and Bucky couldn't tell if he was angry or amused. He sounded like neither. 'We won _a_ war. It turns out the world doesn't have any fewer threats than when you were last in it.' He paused for a second. 'Look, I'm not your superior officer.'

Maybe it would be easier if he were, Bucky thought. Easier to just serve, to have orders to follow. To have his thoughts drift away, unneeded and unwanted.

'And I'm not your jailer either,' Fury went on. 'S.H.I.E.L.D. is about protecting people. I just think you'd rather be keeping the world safe than losing yourself in it.'

'I know I don't want to be Cap.'

'Maybe you don't have to be.'

Bucky was confused for a few moments. The air might be cooler here, but the inside of his head was still sticky. 'You want to study me,' he finally said. This time his stomach clenched with nausea, not hunger. 'See if you can make… others.'

Fury was unperturbed. 'Like I said, S.H.I.E.L.D. is about protecting people.'

He didn't answer. Instead he looked at the shield again, at the empty space behind it where Steve should be. The thought of anyone else wielding it, even touching it, was unbearable, and he knew that was petty and childish and just plain _dumb_.

But he couldn't help it. He couldn't help but feel the thought was all those things, and yet also right.

He saw his hand move towards the shield and did nothing to stop it. The metal was cool but not cold and when he hoisted it up by the rim it was lighter than he remembered, two days and sixty-six years ago. Maybe it was just that he was stronger now. _Yeah, too little too late, buddy_. The though settled in his throat like a chunk of jagged blade, but it didn't stop him from grabbing one of the straps on the back of the shield.

He was sure that if he slipped the shield onto his arm, it would fit better now.

He had to bite his tongue, hard enough to draw blood, to stop himself from laughing (crying?). It was starting to become a habit.

Fury's voice would have startled him if his senses hadn't picked up on the other man approaching before his brain did. 'Listen, you don't have to do anything right now.' He was holding a file. Bucky wondered how he was going to grab it, but Fury didn't hand it to him. 'Have some breakfast. Get some rest. You heal fast, but you still need to recover from the crash. It should give you some time to think about what you want to do.'

'What's in the file?'

Fury blinked once before answering. 'Some of what you missed out on.'

'My—I had a family,' Bucky said. 'Do you know…'

'We can track them down for you,' Fury said, before Bucky had to finish the sentence.

Neither of them spoke for a moment. Bucky felt his hand tighten on the strap. The shield brushed his leg. He was starting to grow used to the weight. Fury's expression was blank again, his gaze knowing.

_You should have left me in the ice_, Bucky wanted to say, but instead he looked down at the shield. 'Can I keep it with me?'

It wasn't really a question.

* * *

><p><strong>TBC…<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> The bit with Bucky being irrationally annoyed at the thought of someone else touching the shield references something interesting in both Cap movies: obviously lots of people bounce off the shield/get the shield lobbed at them, etc, but if you look carefully, only Steve and Bucky actually handle the shield. Even in the bit in CA:TFA where Steve sees the shield for the first time, Howard doesn't touch it, even tough it would be perfectly unremarkable for him to hand it to Steve. In contrast, Bucky has wielded it three times now, which I'm hoping is not-terribly-subtle foreshadowing…

The line _Cap, if you think you're putting me on the bench again_ comes from the _Captain America: Super Soldier_ game, which is set during CA:TFA. I actually recommend checking it out if you're interested in seeing more of the Howling Commandos' dynamics, plus quite a few of the actors (Chris Evans, Sebastian Stan, Hayley Atwell, etc) reprise their roles, and there's some nice bits of foreshadowing (plus a scene that is pretty much the definition of Harsher in Hindsight). You can see all the cut-scenes edited together here: youtu . be / XvHIc2P_xUE (the line I quoted happens around 54:00, and Steve has a speech I love right after), and there's quite a few full-length play-throughs on YouTube if you're interested.


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